[SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED.] 


Work for the Workers: 

WEALTH TO THE NATION. 

--- -K W 

BY CHARLES M. DUPUY. 

-_ii_ 

“ Whether the sure way to supply people with tools and materials 
and set them to work , be not a free circulation of money , whether 
silver or paper.” — Bishop Berkeley’s Querist. 

The steady and profitable employment of the people should be 
the highest aim of government. Its encouragement to thrift and 
industry is all-important to social progress. Generally idleness is 
distasteful. Men like to be usefully and profitably employed. 
Organized for action, their highest pleasure is in activity. By 
wise legislation all the people should be encouraged to use their 
wasted faculties so as to become a hive of busy bodies—either of 
brain or hand. 

Millions Lost by Idleness. 

As it stands to-day, there is a sad lack of opportunity. With 
the exhaustless productiveness of the earth to mine, to cultivate, to 
explore, the channels of industry are everywhere blocked and 
gorged, and the hand of labor is palsied. The earth teems with raw 
material, awaiting the magic transformation of man’s energies ; 
but labor stands idle in the market-places, and capital lies piled 
up uselessly in banks. Millions of men are either in enforced 
idleness, or are unprofitably employed. 

The waste of productive energy may be counted by the daily 
loss of millions of dollars, and yet all this is but an atom in com-, 
parison to the miseries of the people, the shipwreck of human life, 
and the general demoralization from enforced idleness. 

Want of employment leads to discouragement, hopelessness, and 
despair. It overflows almshouses, charitable institutions, prison- 
houses, and- penitentiaries. It degrades manhood. It ruins fami- 



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lies. Misery, crime, and suicide follow in its wake. It supplies 
ready victims for the gallows. 

Enough for All. 

The world is neither over-populated, nor are its crude pro¬ 
ducts all utilized. Properly organized there is ample room for 
all—from the lowest to the highest—-without conflict, and with¬ 
out pressure. Man is paying a heavy penalty for his imper¬ 
fect organization of society, in the large loss of material prosperity 
that would otherwise be promoted. 

Better food, clothing, shelter, recreation, and amusements, are 
needed for the comfort of all. More farms should be cultivated, 
manufactures developed, metals mined, railroads built, rivers and 
harbors improved, machinery originated and perfected. 

Opportunities naturally exist for the energies of all, but .man’s 
selfishness towards man has discouraged industry, by sanctioning 
for ages, through law and usage, the excessive value of money and 
interest, thereby causing deprivation and suffering to the many 
for the benefit of the few. 

The Love of Power the Drawback. 

The instinctive craving of humanity has always been for higher 
civilization, but the love of power has checked its progress. In 
all ages the sway of power over weakness has been supreme. Its 
reign, unlike that of kings, has been an unbroken dynasty from 
the beginning. No race or time is peculiarly responsible for its 
tyranny. It springs spontaneously in the breast of man. It is 
most often for power that wealth is eagerly accumulated, long 
after it has gratified all other desires. 

Even many of the poor, without considering the chances against 
them, hope, some day, themselves, to gratify this love for power; 
but failing to have laws enacted for the just distribution of wealth, 
they are usually disappointed. It is estimated that two-thirds of all 
the wealth in the country is already in the hands of three per 
cent, of the population, and is still rapidly concentrating. In view 
of this, what chances for wealth are within the grasp of the poor ? 

Labor watches with a jealous eye the growth of capital, the ex¬ 
ponent of power; but capital is always on the alert to guard its 
interests. Each now recriminates the other, and both stand glar¬ 
ing and defiant; but it may be the province of this generation to 
work these discordant elements into order and harmony. It can 
only be accomplished by increasing the profit of industry and lessen- 


ing that of capital; by enlarging the volume of money and reducing 
interest. 

The Difficulty. 

The impoverishment of the people through an inability to earn 
and consumers curtailed markets; while the ever-increasing pro¬ 
ductiveness of improved machinery has constantly added to the 
embarrassment, by producing commodities in excess of the limited 
demand. To-day, one man does what would have been the work 
of a hundred fifty years ago. The steam-power of eight tons of 
coal, is sufficient to make 40,000 miles of cotton thread in ten 
hours, equal to the hand-labor of 70,000 women ! A few shoe¬ 
making machines now displace a whole village of cobblers. Con¬ 
sumption does not keep pace with the production by machinery. 
Markets become glutted. Unhealthy competition, struggling for 
life, establishes unprofitable prices. Then, the spindles, the work¬ 
shops, the counting-houses are brought to a stand-still, and labor 
is left to wait as best it may, in idleness and distress, until con¬ 
sumption has overreached production, and new life is infused into 
a profitable industry. 

These uneven pulsations of activity and idleness follow in con¬ 
tinuous succession. Now exhausted markets stimulate excessive 
production to supply urgent wants, and then the quick action of 
machinery paralyzes these markets. 4 The remedy is to enlarge 
markets, through the currency, by enabling the people to inter¬ 
change the results of their labor. By perfecting machinery without 
creating a more general consumption , financial depressions will be 
increasingly aggravated. 

Universal Consumption not Extravagance. 

Some believe a larger consumption by the people generally, is a 
dangerous encouragement to extravagance. They confound the 
enlarged necessities of a higher civilization with the recklessness 
of dissipation. They forget that increasing consumption is a token 
of progress, in favorable contrast with the simple wants of barbar¬ 
ism. The undeveloped virgin soil, the home of naked savages, is 
valueless until the activity of civilization gives an impetus to pro¬ 
duction. 

Consumption stimulates industry. The usefully busy cannot be 
very vicious. The brigands on the world’s moral highways gen¬ 
erally do not come from the ranks of trained industry. They are 
usually the fungous growth of idleness, entailed on society 
like hereditary disease. A plague or fever receives prompt atten- 


4 


tion to ensure abatement; while idleness, more hurtful, and yet 
remedial by legislation, for ages has been overlooked. 

The Remedy is a Wider Consumption. 

The real' want is a wider range of consumption among the whole 
people everywhere, so as to open large markets, by the most active 
interchange of their diversified labor. Great broad channels of con¬ 
sumption are needed, in which to pour exhaustless streams Of pro¬ 
duction, until all the people are supplied with the necessities and 
comforts of life. 

Millions fully employed increase largely their purchasing ability, 
and by their moderate consumption are created wider and more 
stable markets than are furnished by the most wasteful extravagance 
of the few rich. Assume.our 45,000,000 of population are com¬ 
prised in nine million families, whose weekly earnings are each 
increased ten dollars. Here is annually 4,680,000,000 of dollars 
of increased power to purchase the enlarged products of industry! 

If man will continue to improve labor-saving machinery , he must 
find a way to dispose of its increased production , by a larger general 
consumption , or else stagnation and distress will be more and mere 
frequent. 

How to Create a Wider Consumption, 

By simply allowing labor the unrestricted use of money to ac¬ 
complish its exchanges, a universal stimulus will be infused, both 
to create and to market the product of man’s energies. This free 
supply will cheapen interest, and low interest , by adding to the 
profits of producers , will lessen that of capital, thereby encouraging 
the activity of production. 

This needed encouragement will cause more acres to be tilled, 
more metals mined and fashioned, more goods manufactured—in 
short, will absorb man’s wasted faculties in producing wealth and 
prosperity. Millions of idle peop le will then be able to earn the 
means to purchase the products, both of machinery and human 
labor, and generally to supply the increasing necessities of civili¬ 
zation. 

This vast stimulus to increased production from the earth, 
some may call inflation ; but an inflation which fosters industry, 
and creates universal happiness and comfort, by utilizing more 
largely the crude wealth of the earth, is just the kind of inflation 
the country requires. 

Money has been compared to a bridge, built and maintained 


5 


at public expense , for the easy transfer ot labor and products, on 
which no loll charge can be rightfully claimed through class legisla¬ 
tion to favor the few. Are not banks unwisely allowed to toll the 
people’s money ? At one time, by largely discounting private 
notes, in exchange for bank credit, they expand values; at an¬ 
other, by withholding help, precipitate public ruin. A sound 
national, full legal-tender paper money, maintained always suffi¬ 
cient for their exchanges, would stop bank inflation and an un¬ 
reasonable toll on the public. 

Money should be the tool of handicraft, not its master. Its 
value should no longer be gauged by laws which hamper the 
growth of industry. New wants suggested by discovery and 
invention beckon us onward to higher civilization, and the cir¬ 
culating medium should no longer be arbitrarily determined by 
quack theories, but be clothed with an expansive power, like post¬ 
age stamps, proportionate to the industrial exigencies of the people , 
and at rates that shall not.paralyze national growth / 

Excessive Interest is Ruin to Industry. 

Unjust laws for the undue increase of capital at the expense of 
labor, are charged with dwarfing the industries, through ex¬ 
cessive interest, thereby retarding civilization. The draft of 
capital is too heavy. It concentrates wealth in few hands, and 
condemns the many to hopeless poverty. 

Laws in all ages have not been made in the interest of a broad 
humanity, but to perpetuate wealth and power for the benefit of 
the few. Law allows an estate of six millions of dollars, in forty 
years at six per cent., to be compounded to ninety eight millions 
of dollars, while its possessor may live in idleness. Custom gives 
to the world’s workers barely sufficient compensation for the 
most economical support of a family, while failing health or em¬ 
ployment too often brings dependence. Do laws and customs 
promote social progress and general prosperity, which restrict 
the host of workers to the barest necessities of consumption , in 
order to build up a few towering fortunes ? 

The rental or mortgage of a store or farm, worth $10,000, at 
seven per cent, net, compounded for seventy years, will produce 
$1,270,000; equal to one hundred and twenty-seven stores of like 
value. With all the investment of brain, toil, and capital, the 
uncertain chances of business in that period have bankrupted more 
than one occupant of that store, as statistics show ninety-seven 
per cent, of merchants fail. 


6 


The combined capital of the Rothschilds, mostly accumulated 
in the present century, is estimated at $3,400,000,000, or nearly 
' equal to the funded debt of England. Law allows this thrifty 
family to invest its immense wealth at high usury, in its bargains 
and loans; but at only six per cent, per annum they double it in 
less than twelve years ! What is to become of producers all over 
the world, if the accumulations of interest are not in some way 
legally lessened? Living men , by labor , by production , furnish the 
traffic for railroad dividends, for mortgage interest, for rents, and 
all the sources of revenue of capitalists, which is so rapidly com¬ 
pounded. 

From the wisdom of a large experience in compounding 
money, Lord Bacon says: “ Usury bringeth the treasure of a 
nation into a few hands ; for the usurer being at certainties , and 
the other at Uncertainties , at the end of the game most of the 
money will be in the box.” “It beats down the price of land. 
It dulls and damps industries and new inventions. It is the 
canker and ruin of estates, which in time breed a public poverty.” 

Low Interest a Necessity. 

The march of civilization demands that capital shall be af¬ 
forded at a low cost to labor, so as to quicken industry in its 
largest production from the exhaustless bounty of the earth, for 
increasing civilization is dependent upon the activity of industry. 

He who now invests, and reinvests, a moderate sum at 6 per 
cent, per annum interest, during the period of an ordinary life, 
generally aggregates larger and surer gains than the man who 
adds his own industry to a like sum for a similar period, in the 
chances of business. This is too sadly the fruit of a general 
bitter experience to need proof. The deduction is that interest 
rules too high. Low interest quotations are now a farce to every 
ninety-nine thousand borrowers. A favored few rich pocket its 
advantages, to lend at higher to workers. It is discouraging to 
labor, that loans, in the large average, realize better profit than 
the combined force of brain, hand, and capital. It is an en¬ 
couragement to prey on labor, instead of practising it, and counts 
against production and civilization. High interest and usury 
lessen production, and absorb the bread of industry. 

Low interest fosters and widens industries. With their growth 
they are more and more interchanged. Active markets are cre¬ 
ated in new directions. The simple requirements of the rustic 
cabin change to aspirations for the refinements of civilization, 


7 


and an increased impulse to industry is the premium paid for 
their attainment. Thus the dormant faculties are exercised ; ac¬ 
tivity takes the place of sluggishness; consumption is increased, 
and production is enlarged. They stimulate each other, furnish¬ 
ing nourishment for growth, as food vitalizes the blood and re¬ 
news the life. 

Industry Accumulates only Three per cent, per Annum! 

After supporting life, statistics show that, usually, three per cent, 
is the highest annual increase of material wealth, and whatever in¬ 
terest capital receives above this sum tends to concentrate it to 
the prejudice of industry. Every one per cent, unjustly taken 
from labor, to add to capital, doubles the difference between them ; 
that is, one per'cent, goes to strengthen capital , and one per cent, 
to weaken production. 

The enormous increase of money, by additional percentage, is 
rarely appreciated. One thousand dollars compounded for three 
hundred and sixty years, at one per cent., is $37,574? while at 
six per cent, it is $1,073,741,824 ! It is of historical record, that 
two hundred and fifty years ago, the Dutch bought Manhattan 
Island of the Indians for $24. Had this small sum been com¬ 
pounded at seven per cent, per annum, it would now aggregate 
more than the value of the city and county of New York. The 
whole wealth of the nation would be absorbed by the com¬ 
pounded accumulation of $100,000 at seven per cent, for three 
hundred and sixty years. 

What patent of nobility does capital rightfully possess, that it 
should be allowed to concentrate its gains more rapidly than la¬ 
bor? Without labor, can it build, sow, reap, mine, or take any 
part in the world’s work? It is dead and valueless without la¬ 
bor ; while labor, performing all these offices, and vitalizing capital 
itself, is naturally its peer. Why then should lifeless capital, in 
few hands, hold millions in bondage! 

Labor must be Better Paid. 

In order both to sell and to purchase with increased activity, 
unman labor must be better paid. It is the only way to create 
large and stable markets. While human labor is better paid, au¬ 
tomatic machine labor will cost less and less, as it is perfected by 
discovery and invention. 

A hundred horse-power engine, under the direction of five or 
six men, with automatic machinery, may accomplish in one day 
the hand labor of five or six thousand; and although the cost of 


8 


wages, fuel, and other requirements may be largely increased, 
nevertheless, as machinery is improved and perfected, the aver¬ 
age cost of its products will be constantly diminished. In this 
way, while human labor will advance, machinery will nevertheless 
cheapen production. 

It is true, invention will supplant human labor more and more; 
but still the constant expansion of consumption will give full 
scope to the faculties, of man in newer and wider avenues. A 
large remuneration will increase his ability to purchase these 
cheapened products of machinery; and so the comforts, refine¬ 
ments, and embellishments of a higher civilization will be widely 
diffused, and down-trodden humanity will be more and more 
elevated. Sir John Barnard Byles says of the results of invention 
and improvement: “Men do not dream of the prosperity which 
is in store for all orders of the people. The riches of nature will 
yet rain into the laps of the starving poor.” 

Co-operation of all Labor Essential. 

The industries which are every year more banding together, 
scarcely yet comprehend the magnitude of their mission. Em¬ 
ployer and employed array themselves in needless opposition, 
weakening the force of both, and diverting their common strength 
from the common enemy. 

In the contests where the employers “lockout,” or where com¬ 
bined labor asserts itself in “ strikes,” the true issue of the battle 
is not understood. Both “ strikes” and “ lock-outs,” by lessening 
production , are enemies to civilization . Employers and employed 
should sympathize together more sincerely. With less distrust, 
they would comprehend, that the real enemy of both is the unjust 
standard of money , which, through unfair interest , is constantly 
swallowing the fruit of labor. 

The employer is only the middleman between labor and consum¬ 
ers; and the competition between all middlemen to secure business, 
generally guarantees as fair an equivalent for labor as can be af¬ 
forded. All middlemen alike, those who buy, sell, or advance 
on products, ar z forced, by competition , to moderate profits for ser¬ 
vices, but all alike are victims to the demands of capital—in rents, 
in bank interest, in usury, which in the end must be charged to pro¬ 
ducers. The difficulty is not with the excessive charges for ser¬ 
vices of middlemen, but in the absurd scarcity of money, which 
thereby keeps industry and production in the power of higher interest 
than it can earn . 


9 


Diversified Labor. 

As none can supply all his wants, taste, ability, and circum¬ 
stances have diversified labor, so that whoever works with hand or 
brain must interchange his products with others. It is this high- 
activity of diversified labor that creates prosperity. 

Something, however, intervenes to prevent the free interchange 
of diversified labor; and that “ something" is the unjust laws gov¬ 
erning money by restricting it to a gold basis. Its scarcity and high 
price thereby impoverishes the people by preventing the largest ex¬ 
change of commodities—the source of true wealth. An unem¬ 
ployed shoemaker would willingly make shoes for the shoeless 
children of the weaver ; and the weaver would gladly weave cloth 
for the ragged offspring of the shoemaker; but these imperious 
money laws say to both, and to all other producers, “ You shall 
periodically remain idle, though your children shiver or starve.’’ 

Barter answered well enough the few wants of barbarism ; but 
civilization energizes the faculties, and a larger volume of money 
becomes more and more an essential medium of exchange. The 
increasing productiveness of machinery can only be absorbed by the 
large profits of labor, when it is stimulated by a freer supply of money, 
and consequent reduction of interest. Money floats products and 
labor, from hand to hand, as ships float them in the water. With 
an insufficiency of the medium, the movement of either is im¬ 
peded. 

Money, either in coin or paper, stamped by law, and backed by 
the whole wealth of the nation, by common consent, is the ac¬ 
knowledged best exchange for labor. However well an individ¬ 
ual, or incorporated bank, may for a time have supplied a money 
deficiency, yet banks and bankers fail. Experience points to an 
interchangeable legal tender paper national currency , intercon¬ 
vertible with national bonds, supplied directly by the government, 
alone , at low interest, as the safest refuge of industry in the uncer¬ 
tain struggles of nations for the little gold that exists. 

As the fullest activity of diversified labor is the most important 
of all national questions, and as its free interchange is governed by 
the volume of money, labor may rightfully demand a sufficiency 
for its exchanges. It is not so important that a few should en¬ 
joy excessive interest from its scarcity, as that the whole people 
shall have their faculties quickened into fullest life by its suffi¬ 
ciency. 


10 


Stagnations more and more Frequent. 

The periodical prostrations to industry, during the present cen 
tury, have become more and more frequent. The evil increases 
like the startling compounds of capital. Immediately before the 
late civil war, the country was on the verge of a profound stagna¬ 
tion, averted only by the immense requirements of its wasteful 
necessities. 

We fail to realize that the market outlets of peaceful civilization 
should be in as full activity as when forced by the necessities of war. 
Until this lesson is learned, periodical prostrations will increase. 
The few rich neither need, nor can they consume the immense 
productions of machinery. Is machinery a curse ? Shall it be 
stopped, and the mass of people starve in listless idleness, 
while the few are exhausting over-stocked markets ? No! the 
world will not retrograde. Rather in some way enlarge consump¬ 
tion among the whole people, and so promote general activity, 
comfort, and civilization. This can only be done by enlarging the 
volume of money , thereby reducing interest , increasing consumption , 
and infusing life into all useful occupations. A contracted volume 
of currency, governing high interest , is death to industry / 

The People Asleep. 

The people are as a great giant asleep, whose thews and sinews 
are bound with fragile wisps of straw. Once aroused from slumber 
to a conscious sense of bondage, and the fetters will be rent in a 
thousand fragments. When they generally comprehend the in¬ 
tegrity of their cause, myriads of tongues will proclaim the griev¬ 
ous oppressions so long patiently endured. Then the ballot will 
commence its perfect work, and numbers, majorities, and votes, 
will demand, that interest on capital shall be more justly propor¬ 
tioned to the gains of labor. 

By the unjust standard of money, the profits of labor are so ab¬ 
sorbed by capital as to produce a suffering that humanitarians 
cannot avert or relieve. They in vain strive to rear a firm super¬ 
structure on a defective foundation. Their earnest efforts are 
baffled, and end only in temporary and hurtful expedients. Such 
^s the balefulness of the money standard, that the appeals of 
Christianity for eighteen centuries, however deeply they may 
have furrowed the seed, have not as yet brought a large harvest 
of fellowship. 

This is a queltion for the intelligent, earnest action of the whole 
people; but a more profound knowledge must first prevail —not 


11 


of books of science—of literature—but of the effect of a few sim¬ 
ple laws within the comprehension of the most unlettered. 

Then true men everywhere, regardless of party, will unite to 

overthrow selfishness. Then, the thin gossamer which has so long 

united man’s honest efforts to the unjust interest of capital, will 

be brushed away as a web j and for all time, the value of brain, 

hand, and sinew, will rank superior to past accumulations. No 

constitutional objections have force, for the people may change 

the constitution. 

* 

An Inverted Pyramid. 

It has been well said our forty billions of property rests on ten 
billions of annual products, both being measured by our seven 
hundred millions of currency, which itself is daily gauged by the 
ever-fluctuating value of the one hundred millions of gold we 
possess. 

European necessity may advance its value, or withdraw this 
gold, by exchanging it for indebtedness, and so depreciate our 
property. Here are forty billions at top, narrowing down to one 
hundred millions at the bottom, vibrating all the wealth of the 
country, as it daily rocks on its slender base ! 

Take a broader view. There are only three billions of gold in 
the world, on which are built its vast exchanges of property ; and 
probably one-half of it is hoarded from circulation. Thousands 
of billions of dollars of property and products are annually bought 
and sold. How is it accomplished ? Remember, gold and bank 
currency together are not quite four per cent, of the world’s 
money. It is scarcely Saturday night’s wages—pin money—market 
money. The great transactions of distributing the world’s pro¬ 
perty is accomplished with ninety-six per cent, of private checks. 
These checks* are mostly assumed to be the proceeds of bank dis¬ 
counts of individual notes, founded on gold; but are really tossed 
about, and balanced at bank-counters, with scarcely the color of 
gold behind them. Four per cent, of coin and currency, and 
ninety-six per cent, of checks—paper promises, to pay gold that 
could never be redeemed. What an inverted pyramid of inflated 
credit! It is like a boy’s top balanced on a metal point only so 
long as it is spinning! 

All goes well as long as these gold promises are paid with other 
gold promises ; but the fabric tumbles when the waning confidence 
of a few demand real gold. This pricks the bubble, for there is 
not found one real gold dollar in the world to redeem every 


12 


$i,ooo of bank promises to pay gold ; and the relative difference 
between gold and commodities is constantly widening with grow¬ 
ing civilization. Gold accumulates slowly, with ail man’s greedi¬ 
ness, while through machinery, property is multiplied with incon¬ 
ceivable rapidity. Soon there will not be one gold dollar for 
every five thousand dollars of the world’s exchanges. Is not gold 
a. most faithless and untrustworthy redeeming agent ? From its 
scarcity, how can it fail to deceive its dependents in times of 
trial, when they only then need its help ? Is it not really a sham 
—a snare, a hindrance, and a check to civilization ?• 

Gold being a failure, where shall be look for a safe money 
basis, to be always equal to the necessities of industry ? The an¬ 
swer is, in its labor, commodities and property, all welded to¬ 
gether into National wealth, and crystallized in full legal tender 
paper money, which will make it par with gold. Let its volume 
be maintained equal to the necessities of production, and largely 
take the place of the ninety-six per cent, of private notes and 
bankers’ credits, which are always dangerous and costly to the 
public, but frightfully so in times of unsettled confidence. Such 
a course will infuse a permanent stimulus to prosperity surpassing 
the most sanguine expectation. 

Nations and Railroads: English Vassals. 

England banks on the credulity of the world. Producing com¬ 
paratively little herself, through an artful system of finance she 
draws tribute from all other nations. Although despairing of ever 
paying the principal of her debt, and still constantly adding to it, 
she supplies a few rich subjects with her credit, at about three per 
cent., through the Bank of England, which she substantially con¬ 
trols, which in turn is accepted by nations, railroads, and indi¬ 
vidual borrowers at extortionate rates; and so they, or rather pro¬ 
ducers, to whom all interest in the end is charged, and paid by 
labor, are kept in a perpetual money bondage. 

How a few English exact money allegiance has been strikingly 
illustrated. One hundred families possessing $250,000 each, 
remove to an island, leaving their wealth behind them to be loaned 
and compounded at 6 per cent, per annum for 150 years. In that 
time, by the tabular increase, they will have grown to 1454 fami¬ 
lies. Each family may always draw $3000 per annum for support, 
and yet, at the end of the 150 years, each will be entitled to 
$51,672,455 ! So do lenders in England, on a far larger scale, 
gather up the wealth of the world ! 


13 


How English Interest discriminates against America. 

The advantage to English shipping by low interest is illus¬ 
trated as follows by Hon. Alex. Campbell: Twelve Englishmen 
and twelve Americans each borrow, in their respective countries, 
six millions of dollars, to start a line of twenty-four steamers be¬ 
tween New York and Liverpool. The English borrow, in their 
own country, at 4 per cent., while the American capital costs 10 
per cent, at home. The line averages only 7 per cent, profit. 

In eighteen years, the English profits may buy up all the 
American ships, and have a profit beside of #117,723, while the 
Americans lose their ships, and owe #6,337,151 ! So much for 
the difference between 4 and 7 per cent., favoring the English, 
and the loss between 7 and 10 per cent, prejudicing the Ameri¬ 
cans ! 

Is it not time that America should break loose from unfair Eng¬ 
lish rivalry, by allowing her citizens, through cheap capital , to 
enjoy equal advantages not only in the carrying trade , but in all 
other competing industries ? 

American Superior to English Credit. 

Why should we borrow in England ? Do our securities bring 
gold ? No. They lend us credit , but never gold. The exportation 
of an inconsiderable portion of gold would precipitate a panic. To 
counteract just such a contingency, the British Treasury especially 
stipulated to pay the Alabama award with exchange, which meant 
either bonds returned, or English manufactures exported, to inter¬ 
fere with American industries. 

Her anxiety to augment gold increases as civilization, through 
machinery, enlarges commodities, necessitating thereby an en¬ 
largement of credits, in order to market them. The rapid growth 
of all other property but the precious metals, may well create 
anxiety for the safety of inflated credit based on gold ! 

Is English better than American credit ? Her little island is 
unable to produce sufficient to sustain her population. Her sup¬ 
port mainly comes from 5, 10, or 15 per cent, per annum interest 
on the credit which she indirectly loans to the producers of other 
countries, through Government, State, railroad or other securities. 
These producers being restrained, by the gold basis, from increas¬ 
ing national wealth beyond an average of 2 or 3 per cent, per 
annum, how can they continue, much longer, to meet English in¬ 
terest drafts, which are so much in excess of the growth of their 
own wealth ? 


14 


America, vast in proportions, not only overflows with all the 
elements for independent sustenance, but can contribute largely to 
the support of other nations; and every dollar expended in her 
development, adds to the value of her securities. 

As England’s profit comes mainly from selling credit at a high 
price, which soon may not be marketable, from its uncertain 
continuance, while the United States has enormous internal re¬ 
sources of substantial wealth, why is not our credit superior in 
value? Why then do we mortgage superior American credit for 
inferior English credit, with which to develop America? Rather 
let us develop America directly through a true American mona- 
tary system , with^iaper currency made par with gold by making it 
full legal tender, interconvertible with National bonds, bearing 
low interest, and always maintained in volume adequate to 
national industries. 

As credit is always borrowed, not gold, and as American is 
more substantially secured than English credit, let us borrow 
directly the credit of our own people, through an enlarged cur¬ 
rency, a tool they will use actively to create real wealth, at the 
same time saving unnecessary foreign interest payments. Does 
it not militate against the general intelligence of a spirited peo¬ 
ple, who will subject themselves to the burden and servitude of 
foreign indebtedness, when it is so easy through the currency to 
have the debt of A?nerica owned by Americans? 

France and the United States Compared. 

France, with industries compacted over not one-twentieth the 
area of this country, uses $48 per capita in making exchanges; 
and her amazing recuperation after devastating and almost anni¬ 
hilating wars proves the efficacy of her system. Our industries, 
widely scattered over a vast territory, occasion such delay in ex¬ 
changes as show the need of a large volume, yet the currency 
is less than $20 per capita. While it is admitted to be a super¬ 
abundance for the present stagnation, it is sadly deficient for a 
safe basis of enlarged production. 

If, to vitalize our wasted faculties, and infuse new life into in¬ 
dustries now stagnated by the absorptions of capital, it should 
require the whole national debt to be converted into currency, 
or even to the extent of $100 per capita, why should not the 
people accord their heartiest support ? Would it not relieve us 
of a large burden of interest ? 


15 


The Gains of Capital deplored by Many. 

The evils to society by the unjust gains of capital over labor, 
are deplored by many conscientious men, charged with the re¬ 
sponsibility of wealth. Such men would gladly join hands to 
promote a well-digested, practical scheme to remedy the diffi¬ 
culty, for they realize that large accumulations often bode evil to 
the possessor, by hardening the finer feelings in selfishness, or en¬ 
couraging idleness, dissipation and waste. 

A modification of law, neither agrarian nor prematurely dis¬ 
turbing the relations of life—working gradually and effectively- 
encouraging industry by its high rewards, and discouraging depen¬ 
dence on the interest of capital by its low remuneration _would be 

thankfully accepted by such men as a universal blessing. 

A Picture. 

Fill up from your own observation, and in your own way, the 
full outline and coloring of the following picture. Life is a fierce 
battle scene. On one side are arrayed the self-satisfied few be¬ 
hind the battlements of dead capital, shielded under the law and 
prestige of centuries, dwarfing the industries through excessive 
rates of interest. On the other side are the myriad hosts of life, 
wearily struggling to use their energies for material happiness. 
Look, as they march along: their ranks are filled with bondmen, 
goaded by the unjust standard of money to a hopeless poverty, 
which excessive toil fails to relieve. See weary bodies cruelly 
lashed by dire want, to superhuman exertions and premature 
graves!—Stalwart men and women, with God-given faculties, wil¬ 
ling to work, but in hopelessness^ and despair, a burden and cost 
to society. Now we see them reluctantly brooding over tempta¬ 
tion, and then yielding to wretchedness and crime! The whole 
world is filled with helpless victims to the unfair power of money 
—what a spectacle it presents ! 

It Settles the Grandest Problem of Life. 

As important as the just settlement of this question may be in 
its bearing on public finances, it is far more important in the 
tone it will give to morality and happiness, through the industry 
of the people. 

Employment for idle millions increases vastly the purchasing 
power of the products of industry, and the activity of labor will 
soon add from soil and mine— the fountain of all wealth — thou¬ 
sands of millions of real prosperity , far in excess and outbalancing 
the entire value of the national debt . 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

0 027 133 182 4 

16 

Crude material and idle labor in the Isle of Guernsey was success¬ 
fully consolidated into a public market-house, through a currency 
especially based on its construction, which w r as afterwards absorbed 
by investment bonds, the interest being regularly liquidated from 
its rental. 

Why may not our crude wealth, and idle labor, likewise be pro¬ 
fitably consolidated on a larger scale, into works of greater public 
utility, and managed with the facility of our Post-Office system? 

Under a special Bureau, wisely organized, wherein, by law, the 
severest punishment would swiftly follow public faithlessness, 
the integrity of its administration would be guaranteed, and it 
would be maintained a profitable storehouse for surplus labor. 

Its Benefits Summed Up. 

An enlargement of the currency, by cheapening interest, will 
promote the activity of labor. A general ability to earn freely 
will encourage life, by making it easier, and lessen its hardships. 

Its reasonable requirements will then be met with greater facility. 

The over-reaching and sharp contentions for mere existence will 
no longer be necessary. The hungry will then be fed, and the 
naked clothed. Overpowering temptations to crime will be 
withdrawn. The dignity of manhood, through labor, will be as¬ 
serted, and the able and willing be relieved from the degrada¬ 
tion of dependence. Humanity will be preserved from despair 
and ruin, to usefulness and honor, while integrity, which has 
been fast waning in the land with the concentrations of wealth 
and poverty, will then be greatly promoted in private relations 
and public trusts, with the larger growth of human happiness. 

Then, banishing petty prejudice, and narrow selfishness, by en¬ 
couraging the utmost activity of industry, through wise monetary 
laws, let the clarion watchword of the nineteenth century be u the 
greatest good to the greatest number , M and the marching hosts will 
repeat the cry, until at last disenthralled and redeemed humanity 
will fulfil the crowning glory of creation. 

CHARLES M. DUPUY. 

Philadelphia, 4102 Spruce Street. 


Price to Greenback Clubs, $ 1 per hundred, in lots of 166 to 10, GOO. 
Henry Carey Baird & Co. , Industrial Publishers, 
Booksellers and Importers, 

No. 810 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. 







